Thrive is a game about the universe- we want to let you play however you want, make whatever you want, and live however you like. Thrive will be a free, open-source game created by an online community of dedicated volunteers. Our team seeks to accomplish two major goals: create engaging, compelling gameplay that respects our players' intelligence, and remain as accurate as possible in our depiction of known scientific theory.

Our programmer untrustedlife has been working hard on a prototype that models the microbial ecosystem. At this point, it's basic, but beautiful to watch in action. From a few original microbes in a resource-rich environment grow dozens of strains and hundreds of individuals that compete over resources that are continuously being depleted as they try to maximize their own progeny.
All of this is occurring in a real-time fluid dynamics simulation where the environment is continuously turbulent and nutrients and cells are sent on diverging paths through the liquid environment.
We're very proud of this prototype, and believe it's an excellent way to investigate the ecology of microbe stage. We plan on implementing more varied bacteria, introducing genetic mutations, and making it easier to see which strains are different from others in the future.

Controls are simple- Once you've gained a flagella through endocytosis (soon to be changed to mutation), you can move your cell by clicking and holding LMB on the location you want to move to. However, the current is quite strong, and you'll have to plan your route carefully in order to get where you want. To speed up time, press F1, and to kill your own cell, press F3.

The screen contains cells like yours- you control the green one, and the bacteria in the ecosystem around it. Some bacteria have a chance of being engulfed by your cell and becoming mitochondria (endocytosis), others can be engulfed and become flagella, which allows your cell to move around.

Those all sound like good suggestions. We'll give them to our programmer to help improve it. However, remember that these are only meant to test gameplay mechanics, and the real polishing up is for the main game.

That IS a feature. However, to evolve to further stages (get fire and stuff), you will need to evolve to land, get given tech by aliens, or develop SCAWBA (Self Contained Above Water Breathing Apparatus.)

What bothers me about this is that you've decided to host it on RapidShare, which requires an account to use - an account that I don't have, and don't plan on getting just to download a simple prototype. No offence, but who's idea was it to put the file on RapidShare? Because that was a pretty lame move. PLEASE refrain from doing it again.

I really hope this isn't an example of the support we can expect for Thrive when it's finished, because frankly, this is unacceptable. The prototype is hosted on a site that you need an account for to access, which is a very VERY bad move, the download link within said site itself is broken which is TERRIBLE, and eight months later NONE of those problems have been addressed or even acknowledged. I'm disappointed, Revolutionary, I expected more from a non-profit developer.